Varakļāni (; german: Warkland, yi, וואַרקלאַן, russian: Варакляны) is a
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an ori ...
in the
Latgale historical region
Historical regions (or historical areas) are geographical regions which at some point in time had a cultural, ethnic, linguistic or political basis, regardless of latterday borders. They are used as delimitations for studying and analysing soc ...
of
Latvia. The population in 2020 was 1,740.
History
The town of Varakļāni was founded and established in the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
in the 18th century.
Varakļāni Palace is located in Varakļāni.
Jews in Varaklani
Varaklani had a sizeable population of
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
throughout much of its history, ending with the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
. Towards the end of the 19th century, Jews comprised about 75% of the population. Various
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s,
expulsions,
WWI
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the
Russian Revolutions brought the Jewish population down considerably. Several hundred Jews left with the Russians in preparation of the Nazi advance. The Nazis forced 540 remaining Jews to dig their own graves, and then shot them to death in a
mass shooting
There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 20 ...
on 4 August 1941.
, including online resources, contain much information about community leadership, organizations, and general town information.
Notable people
*
Michael Johann von der Borch
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...
, (1753–1810) Polish statesman and writer
See also
*
List of cities in Latvia
References
External links
*
Towns in Latvia
1928 establishments in Latvia
Populated places established in 1928
Varakļāni Municipality
Rezhitsky Uyezd
Latgale
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